Monday, March 26, 2012

Fwd: Manifesta Journal 14. Out Now

Manifesta Journal

Manifesta Journal 14 "Souvenirs, Souvenirs…" is the first of three Manifesta Journal issues (MJ #14–16) that will explore the plural resonances of "The Politics of Time". Together with guest editor Rasha Salti, the Manifesta Journal editorial team approaches the production of time and art, memory and subjectivity, in relation to the ways that they are constructed and presented by late capitalist and other societies of the global North and South.

For the first time in its history, Manifesta Journal will be available online as a free downloadable .pdf reader. In addition, print-on-demand issues may be ordered at www.manifestajournal.org.

Every two months, a blogger-in-residence is invited to share his/her research in progress. Our current resident is the Amman-based curator and cultural administrator Toleen Touq.

MJ #14 "Souvenirs, Souvenirs…""Souvenirs, Souvenirs…" explores disruptions of a linear conception of time. Each contribution breaks the progress of "straight" time, exposing divergent, peripheral and deviant possibilities. The articles range from anthropological observations on the nature of time and the practice of history, to the politics of official chronology and its effects on the human body. Johannes Fabian's critical take on anthropology's denial of "coevalness" was influential in the decolonization of the imaginary of Western art history and exhibition making, as Anselm Franke makes clear in their conversation. Following that line, archives, museums (both physical and virtual), and even time itself, are performed and reconceived here.

The artistic and poetic entries play with historically, socially and geopolitically grounded narratives. Some of them evoke stories, imaginary documents, sounds, smells and memories of places. The slippery paths of memory in this issue propose to acknowledge the relative legitimacy of documents and the plurality of narratives they produce, as is the case with the contributions of Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Emma Smith and Philip Auslander.

Estefania Peñafiel Loaiza's revival of the once-glamorous Carlton Hotel in Beirut, Bojana Piškur's investigation of the new Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova in Ljubljana, the mystifying universe of Mithat Esmer Bey (who collects everything he can get his hands on) as captured in filmmaker Pelin Esmer's 10 to 11, Virginie Bobin's imaginary performance museum, and Khaled Fahmy's "The Smell of Alexandria" each offer us a novel way to engage, interrogate, and disrupt the fabrication of memories as much as the mechanics of the process. Furthermore, in the second part of Suely Rolnik's contribution, sensations and experiences of the artistic and psychosomatic explorations of Lygia Clark in the 1960s and 1970s further the idea of memories being stored in the body.

Finally, Time/Bank initiators Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle were invited to reflect on their captivating, ongoing, and globally-franchising project, which is based on the re-enactment of an initiative by a nineteenth century economist who imagined a regime of economic production and exchange entirely outside capitalism. And musician and artist Sam Shalabi has produced a downloadable sound piece specifically for this issue, exploring these themes.

Manifesta Journal is an initiative of the Manifesta Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is generously supported by the European Commission and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences of the Netherlands.